The Good Old Days Of Chemo

I almost miss the routine of chemotherapy.  You may find that hard to believe.  Hell, I find it hard to believe.  But it is true.  I almost miss it.  Almost.

Why?  Chemotherapy provided me with structure in a number of ways.  First, of course, it provided a steady schedule of things to do:  blood test, every week; doctor appointment, every three weeks; chemo itself, every three weeks.  The chemo routine also dictated my physical condition:  tired and miserable right after treatment, followed by improvement and finally feeling near-normal.

Most of all, chemotherapy functioned (as my minister put it) as a way to manage my anxiety.   My whole life revolved around chemo; thus, it gave me a focus for my emotional energy.  Chemotherapy and its side effects also were tangible signs that the cancer was being eradicated.  In a sense, I felt safe during chemo because I knew the cancer-fighting drugs were circulating in me.  As much as I disliked feeling bad, there was also a strange kind of comfort in it.

My life since the end of chemo has been far more difficult than I would have ever predicted.  I was looking forward to “getting my life back.”  Instead, I basically fell apart emotionally.  I’ve had a rough time the past few months, and am only now starting (barely) to approach where I was before.

Reliable sources tell me that my experience is not unusual.  Small comfort that is.  I wonder why no one ever told me about this reaction ahead of time.  They scared me with every physical side effect that could possibly happen to me.  Why not let me in on the mental side effects as well?  Not knowing certainly did not prevent it from happening.

My Life, Courtesy of my Creative Zen Nano Plus

Once again borrowed from Just Another Day  (although Gina borrowed this herself . . . )

Go to your music player of choice and put it on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question. NO CHEATING.

How does the world see me?
“Have a Drink on Me” AC/DC
uh-oh.

Will I have a happy life?
“Poor Twisted Me”  Metallica
I don’t like the turn this is taking . . .

What do my friends really think of me?
“Dreamer” Studio 30 (my brother and sister-in-law’s former band: click here to hear a sample)
Okay, this one I can live with.

Do people secretly lust after me?
“The Evil that Men Do”  Iron Maiden
I’ll take this as a no . . .  (damn!)

How can I make myself happy?
“American Idiot” Green Day
Hmmm, does this mean I should take up life as a protester?  I certainly “don’t want to be an American Idiot,” and “I’m not part of a redneck agenda.”

What should I do with my life?
“Set Me Free” Velvet Revolver
Another answer I can buy.

What is some good advice for me?
“So Tell Me Why” Poison
Because the exercise said to ask you, oh flash player of wisdom.

How will I be remembered?
“I Saw Red (acoustic version)” Warrant
Ah, come on.  I’m not a cheatin’ wench.  What gives with these answers?!

What is my signature dancing song?
“Yeah, Baby” Studio 30
The title sounds like a good dance song, doesn’t it?  But it’s not – it’s basically a very brief guitar solo.  No drums, no real rhythm – and since I can’t dance, probably very appropriate.

What do I think my current theme song is?
“Lucky” Melissa Etheridge
Now this I wholeheartedly agree with!

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
“I Can’t Dream of You” Studio 30
Well, I am kind of known for getting hung up on things and having a hard time letting go.

What song will play at my funeral?
“You Can Sleep While I Drive” Melissa Etheridge
Okay, I can see this.

What type of men/women do I like?
“The Kid” Peter, Paul & Mary
Younger women?
The song itself is about someone who is a dreamer and doesn’t deal effectively with reality.
I’m not sure which is better.

What is my day going to be like?
“Take the Chance” Peter, Paul & Mary
Okay, I will!

What one thing could I not live without?
“One Time is Never Enough” Studio 30
Lol!  Yep.

“Brought Low by a Common Bug”

It took getting the stomach flu a week and a half after my last chemo to do it. (Or maybe it was a touch of food poisoning, I’m not sure which.) Do what? Something I had not done in five months of chemotherapy: vomit. Yes, TMI, I know. But hey, I’m talking about cancer treatment here, so give me a little leeway. I like how my best friend expressed the irony of my situation:

Dear God, Deb. That's a hell of a note. Your body withstands toxic chemicals for weeks and weeks with only a general malaise and then is brought low by a common bug.

I’m actually much better now. I first got sick last Tuesday, although there was somewhat of a delayed onset, with full symptoms not appearing until Thursday, the day on which I had a blood test. Of course, I talked to my nurse about my illness before I went in, so she was all set to see me. My white blood count was terrible at 300 (minimum to get chemo is 1500). An antibiotic was prescribed, and I had to call in with symptom updates. When I got worse overnight I though she was going to throw me in the hospital. Fortunately, I improved as Friday wore on, so I avoided being admitted, for which I’m very thankful. The last place you really want to be when your white count is 300 is a germy hospital.

I did learn (or was reminded of) a couple of things from this episode of gastrointestinal distress (I’m big on trying to learn from this stuff, in case you haven’t yet noticed). For starters, anti-nausea drugs that work great on chemo-induced nausea do little to settle other types.

Also, I was reminded that I should be careful what I wish for because I just might get it. In the week following my last treatment, I kept hoping that I could avoid getting a cold, since I had caught colds after my fourth and fifth treatments. And I did avoid getting a cold. Lucky me!

Finally, I was reminded how important my family and friends have been to my recovery from surgery and chemotherapy. On Thursday afternoon, I sent out an email asking for their good thoughts and prayers as I dealt with my stomach problems. By that evening, I had over 20 replies in my inbox, with another half dozen or so coming within the next day. No matter how bad I feel, the love and support of my family and friends does a lot to pick me up again. Thank you!

I Hear Music

I have blatantly stolen this idea from one of my favorite bloggers, Gina, who writes Just Another Day. Check out her blog.

In her entry “Crazy Concert Carnivale”, Gina said:

Some of the concerts I have been to in the past have been rolling around in my head lately, and I thought I would compile some of them into one post.

I decided to do the same. The questions are Gina’s; the answers are mine.

How many concerts I have attended: Not nearly as many as most of my friends would guess. About 20.

The concert I am most embarrassed to admit I attended: I was happy to attend every concert I’ve been to, at least at the time of the concert. If I had to pick one, then I have to pick three: Stryper, a Christian hair metal band, which I saw three times. I’m still a fan of the hair metal (go ahead, laugh), but when I think back to the over-the-top costumes and staging of the Stryper concerts, I feel a little sheepish for having been there. Those concerts also have the distinction of being the loudest I’ve ever been to (and that includes two AC/DC concerts).

The most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me at a concert: When I went to see Janis Ian at the Kent Stage a few years ago, I tripped in the lobby – over nothing, as far as I could tell – and sprained my ankle.

Band I have seen the most times in concert: Melissa Etheridge, with five. I skipped her last tour due to a combination of lack of funds and being unimpressed with her Lucky album (I know, that’s tantamount to blasphemy – so take away my lesbian membership card). When she had her bout with breast cancer, I momentarily thought, “Oh shit, what if I don’t get to see her in concert again.” But she is touring again this summer, and I plan to go, even if I have to sit in the cheap seats.

Most entertaining thing I have ever seen at a concert (other than the band): Stryper concerts were always amusing for the audience mix: typical metal dudes and chicks alongside buttoned-down Christian kids. The most entertaining thing I saw at one such concert was a couple of those presumably buttoned-down Christian kids who were seated directly in front of us. Apparently, this couple didn’t get much “alone time.” Through the entire concert, they remained seated, even when the rest of the crowd was on its feet. The boy had his arm around his girlfriend’s shoulder, and his hand was clearly snaked underneath her shirt and inside her bra. Her hands were never visible to us . . .

First concert I ever attended: The Osmonds, circa 1977. (No, I’m not embarrassed by this – I was twelve years old).

Farthest I have ever traveled for a concert: to Akron, about 30 miles away.

Most disappointing concert: Indigo Girls (I think it was the Shaming of the Sun Tour). I can’t quite say why. IG performed well, but it didn’t captivate me the way I thought it would. Of course, it didn’t help that the row of baby dykes behind us kept climbing over us to go buy beer (and then go empty themselves of beer). I’m amazed I didn’t get doused. I was also annoyed that the crowd sang along so loudly that I couldn’t hear IG at times – maybe that was a mixing problem.

Worst thing that ever happened to me at a concert: See entry above for most embarrassing thing.

Best.Concert.Ever.: Peter, Paul & Mary, at Kent State University, May 4, 1995. I applauded so much and so hard that I bruised both my palms.

On To The Next Steps

Last week, I had my final chemotherapy treatment for ovarian cancer. So far, I’ve been laying around and sleeping a lot, as this last dose of cancer-killing agents does its thing, so I haven’t really had a chance to reflect on the significance of this stage in my recovery. I did send out an email to my mail list, and in her reply, my minister said:

You've reached a real milestone. Now you can begin the next phase of recovery – assimilating what all this has meant and where your life is now. What a champ!

My first reaction to her words is to think about my earlier post on “Bravery.” In some ways, I really don’t feel like I’ve done anything all that special, other than follow the doctor’s orders.

On the other hand, though, I do know that I’ve gone through a number of transformations. The most obvious is physical, of course. I no longer have a uterus or cervix or ovaries or fallopian tubes. Or cancer cells. I now have hot flashes and an eight-inch scar up the center of my belly and lingering soreness in my abdomen whenever I try to push myself physically (like undertaking additional household chores).

And there are a lot of emotional changes. Before my surgery, which marked my official diagnosis, there was still the hope that I did not have cancer. Since then, I know that I have had cancer, and I will always have the fear of recurrence with me. Sometimes the fear is rather strong and overwhelming. Most of the time it is just a dull ache in the back of my mind. However, despite that fear, I also have a great deal of hope. My cancer was caught early, unusually early for the type of cancer it is. I have a sense of being given a second chance – not just to continue living, but to live my life in a way that is richer and more true to the ideals I’ve imagined for myself. I’m excited about the possibilities that will open to me in this next phase of my life.

I think that I have also undergone spiritual transformation as well. This is related to the feeling of being given a second chance, but there is more. I feel more grateful for the things that I have. I’ve always enjoyed spending time with my parents, but I really relish it now. I do still get irritated and upset over little things, but the feelings seem to dissipate faster – and if they don’t, I’ve got plenty to remind me that life is too short to cry over spilled milk (or milk leaking out of the blender, as it did yesterday!). I feel that there is some purpose that I am supposed to serve out. I’m not sure what it is, and maybe it is not one big event or thing, but a series of small steps. I’m looking forward to seeing it unfold.

Of course, all these transformations are ongoing. I guess I am just beginning the process of assimilation that my minister mentioned in her email to me. On to the next steps!

I Feel Cranky

I feel cranky. I feel fat, gross, sick and disgusting. I’ve gained weight during chemo. I’ve lost all the muscle tone and stamina I had developed in the year before my surgery. My abdomen still gets sore when I do chores like unload the dishwasher. I’m getting more hot flashes than ever. I’m having intestinal issues. I’m sick of taking pills. I’m tired of being bald and wearing hats and having hardly any eyebrows and eyelashes. I’m tired of being tired.

This is the point in my chemo cycle when I become particularly restless:  I’m not quite well enough to resume (relatively) normal activities, but I’m well enough to become unsettled. My physical symptoms have subsided enough for my fears to begin breaking through again. At this stage, my tendency toward depression becomes most evident.

When I was a child and would whine about some perceived hardship, my mother would tell me to “offer up” my suffering to God. I was never quite sure why God would want it.

I still don’t believe that God wants our suffering, but I do have more of an appreciation for what my mom was getting at. I do believe that I can learn something from this experience. I believe that there is purpose and value in being open to the lessons available to me today, even if I can’t figure them out right away.

I don’t like how I feel today, but it is how I feel. Maybe one of today’s lessons is to simply accept that fact without struggling against it. I’ve been at this stage four times before, and four times it has passed. Undoubtedly, I’ll pass through it this time as well.

Revisiting the Past

As I’ve mentioned on my website (www.celinski.net, see The Academic Word), I used to live my life in the academic world. While I was attending graduate school, I taught English at Kent State University. Mostly I taught freshman English I and II (usually numbered something like English 101 and 102 at most schools, although KSU used 10001 and 10002). I also taught some sections of business writing (20001), a sophomore-level course required for business majors.

The last semester I taught was Fall 1995. By the time I finished with my teaching stint, I was pretty burned out on the experience:  its low pay, lack of appreciation, and dearth of career prospects. Nevertheless, in the time since then, my mind has wandered back to that slice of my life. There are some things I miss about teaching college level courses:  the relative freedom of the daily schedule, the control I had in the classroom, the rare but fantastic “teaching high,” the feeling that I was “making a difference” – at least sometimes.

I’ve also started to think about how I would do things differently now. When I began teaching, I was essentially fresh out of undergraduate school – all I had was a semester of grad school and an inadequate pedagogy class to prepare me. I had no real world (i.e., non-academic) experience to guide me. After I left grad school, I worked for a temporary agency for a couple years, which exposed me to a number of work environments. One of those jobs turned into my first permanent job, in the sales office of a steel processing facility. And finally, I did freelance editing work, which finally led to my current gig as an editor, researcher and writer for a business research firm. As a result of these experiences, I now have a much better idea of what would be truly helpful to my students in the courses I used to teach.

To start with, I want to think about the introduction to English that most college students get:  the dreaded, required English 101 (a.k.a. English I, Eng 10001, etc.). If I were to teach English 101 again, here is what I would do differently:

1. Punctuation, Grammar & Other Sentence Level Errors

While important, I’d let go of the more esoteric points of punctuation and grammar, because in the working world, these things just don’t matter. I’d also find some way to simplify the discussion of sentence types. I’d encourage my students to write in a simple style (i.e., more Hemmingway than Faulkner). Not only is a simpler style easier to master, but it is also more effective in business environment. Note that I am not advocating for my students to produce simplistic texts. Rather, I want them to produce texts that are clear, clean and easy-to-follow.

1. Rhetorical Strategies – Traditional, from English 101 Textbooks

When I started teaching, the fashion was to teach traditional rhetorical strategies (e.g., description, comparison/contrast, instructions, argumentation) one a time. After learning a strategy, students would write an entire essay using just that one strategy. This, of course, is artificial and hard to do. Very rarely does any piece of successful writing use only one strategy. In addition, this approach subverts effective writing technique – as a writer, you pick your strategies to enhance your message, rather than pick a strategy and try find a message to fit within it.

As my teaching career progressed, there was a reaction against this original approach. This new approach asked students to read long, complex essays, and write amorphous, “thinking’ replies, which were supposed to get them in touch with how to think and how to work their way into writing on a topic. This tactic was overwhelming and failed to teach basic structure of any kind. Students ended up frustrated and perplexed, because they couldn’t really understand what kind of texts they were supposed to be producing (neither could I, for that matter).

Were I to teach again, I would strike a middle ground. I’d teach the traditional rhetorical strategies, but rather than ask students to write entire essays based on each, I’d have them practice each strategy via shorter passages (a paragraph or two). Equally important, I’d emphasize the reasons to use each approach, depending on the intended purpose of the passage. I’d also make sure that students understood how to combine strategies. To learn this, students would examine essays (e.g., from newspapers, magazines, business texts, and other accessible sources) to analyze what strategies are being used for what purpose.

1. Rhetorical Strategies – Essay-Wide

Almost all pieces of writing, except for specialized pieces such as instructions, are basically argumentation. In other words, the writer intends to prove the validity of his or her main point. The abilities to recognize the tactics that writers use and to use such tactics themselves are key for students’ success in undergraduate school and beyond. Thus, in a way similar to the exercise in point #2 above, students would examine different media to analyze how writers use various strategies to prove their points. The emphasis here would be on the global approach to the argument in a piece – what is the main point, and how is it supported throughout the piece? I also think it is important for students to be able to practice this skill on a variety of media, including newspaper and magazine articles, advertising (print, TV, Internet) and other sources such as company websites and Internet blogs, among others. Ultimately, students would begin to be able to make use of these strategies in their own writing.

1. Writing in the Working World

Although usually the subject of Business or Technical Writing Courses, I would start to address this topic in English 101. At the very least, I would teach students how to write a resume and cover letter. Other topics might include memos and business letters of various types, as well as reports and executive summaries. In addition, I would cover how writing styles vary in the different academic disciplines, based on what sorts of majors appeared in my classes.

As far as teaching the resume and cover letter, I might create a character for the students to write about, especially since freshman do not often have much work experience. I would provide details about the character’s background (both relevant and not), and the students would use these to write a resume and cover letter(s).

1. Subject Matter of Student Essays

I would encourage students to write about subjects that interest them. At the same time, I want to avoid “confessional” essays, in which students tell me way too much about their personal lives. I think the second teaching trend in point #2 above had the right idea – that is, encouraging students to engage with other texts and ideas. However, students need accessible material, at least to start with. Thus, I would have students engage with the types of texts and media I’ve been talking about so far. I might also try to pique students’ interest by having them write reviews of CDs, books, TV shows and concerts.

1. Performance and Evaluation of Research, especially on the Internet

While this is usually the main subject for English 102, I think students need an introduction to the performance and evaluation of research in 101. It is crucial to teach students to evaluate what they find – especially on the Internet – so that they can assess is validity and usefulness. Furthermore, an introduction to research would dovetail nicely with an extended discussion of plagiarism.

Wal-Mart and Me

I have a number of friends who won’t shop at Wal-Mart. They boycott the retail behemoth because they don’t like its business practices. Particular issues include the way Wal-Mart treats its suppliers, competitors, and employees; the negative effect Wal-Mart has on local communities and retailers; the company’s stance on selling emergency birth control pills and on insurance coverage of birth control pills for its employees; and the company’s effect on world trade and globalization.

While I find these issues troubling, I have to admit that I shop at Wal-Mart anyway. I feel guilty doing it, but I still go to Wal-Mart to buy my personal care items, as well as socks, underwear, and t-shirts. I’ve even purchased small electronics there, such as a CD player and an MP3 player. Some items I won’t buy at Wal-Mart. I won’t buy small appliances there because I think the company stocks inferior products. I won’t buy CDs at Wal-Mart because the company does not carry albums with the RIAA's Parental Advisory Label.

The reason I shop at Wal-Mart is that it offers lower prices on many items. Does this mean I’m putting saving a few bucks ahead of my ideals? I guess so, but it really isn’t that simple. I made a lot of poor financial decisions when I was younger, and I am literally paying for them now. My debts have a huge influence on my life, and I’m trying to pay them off so I can eliminate that pressure. I try to save money where I can to help me get out from under that mountain.

Aside from my own personal financial pressures, I am also not convinced that Wal-Mart’s competitors are significantly better in terms of corporate behavior. I know one person who will not shop at Wal-Mart, but instead shops at Target. Target, however, engages in many of the same practices that Wal-Mart does. The CNN/Money article “Just Call It ‘Teflon’ Target” points out several of these practices:

• Both chains are non-union establishments.


• Both use a big box store format that some criticize as being eyesores.


• Both are expanding into more urban neighborhoods.


• Both have similar pay and health benefit policies.

In addition, Target allows employees to refuse to dispense medication based on religious beliefs. For example:

A 26-year-old Missouri woman was refused emergency contraception when she handed her prescription to a pharmacist at a Target store in Fenton, MO, on September 30, 2005. The woman was told by the pharmacist, “I won’t fill it. It’s my right not to fill it.” She was told that she could go to a local Walgreen’s instead. (see “Target Corporation” article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Then there are my observations based on my mom’s retail experience. My mom worked for several years for Kohl’s, in the jewelry department, and I can tell you, her pay and working conditions were far from ideal. In fact, when she queried a Wal-Mart employee with a similar position, she found that Wal-Mart actually paid more (although it still wasn’t a great wage). In fact, I don’t know anyone who has ever worked retail who was pleased with their wages or working conditions.

So why not shop at local retailers? I used to shop at a local chain – Marc’s – for the types of items I now buy at Wal-Mart. I stopped because I couldn’t stand the atmosphere: Marc’s stores are dirty and do not consistently stock the items I want to buy. Furthermore, the chain still uses older cash registers, on which the cashier must manually enter the price. Not only does this make check out take a long time, but it also allows mistakes to happen frequently. Plus, Marc’s takes only cash or checks, which is inconvenient for me.

Nevertheless, I’m still left wondering what to do about the issues that concern me. Am I just making up excuses for myself? How am I supposed to manage my own financial situation and live up to my ideals? Does it really matter if I boycott this retailer or that one? Can I make a difference? I don’t know.

Psychosomatic Tendencies

I was wondering how I would get through 18 weeks of immunosuppressive chemotherapy without getting a cold. The answer is that I wouldn’t – not get a cold, that is. I’m still planning to get through the chemo.

I’ve always had psychosomatic tendencies. Suggest it and I feel like I’m getting it. If someone in the next cube over coughs, I think I have a sore throat. Someone in the marketing department has the stomach flu? Now I think I’m feeling a little queasy. After my dad’s heart attack a dozen years ago, I felt certain I had chest pains, too. I even had myself checked by a doctor, who had me wear a Holter monitor for 24 hours. It revealed no problems.

That last example is a bit unusual – I usually know better than to chase to the doctor on the mere suggestion of my fears. In fact, because of my psychosomatic tendencies, I’m usually pretty slow to “officially” declare myself sick. Not that anyone I know would believe it – my friends seem to see me as being sick a lot, although at work I almost always finish the year out with sick days remaining (yes, I’m the stick-in-the-mud who takes them when she’s actually ill). Nevertheless, my tendencies have caused me more than a little stress throughout my life.

And I also wonder if they didn’t help to seed this cold that I’ve been plagued with. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I know this cold is the result of exposure to a virus, and I’ve been around plenty of coughing, hacking, wheezing people. But I wonder if I primed myself to be vulnerable to the exposure. A week after my third chemo, when my white count dropped (per usual), my nurse made a huge deal of it. She seemed on the verge of suggesting that I not go to work, although she wouldn’t quite say it. In fact, I got the distinct impression she was trying to get me to suggest it. Little did she know that I had two coughing, wheezing parents at home, so what did it matter if I were at work or not.

Despite the fact that I had felt fine before my conversation with her, the minute I got off the phone with my nurse, I felt a bit of tightness in my chest. “Oh no, here I go again. Is that that a cough about to come up?” It was all I could do to concentrate on my job for the rest of the day, especially with the thunderous coughing of all my ill coworkers surrounding me. From then on, my constant worry was avoiding a cold. I used so much hand sanitizer I thought my skin would peel off. I hid in my cube and practically shrunk away from coworkers who stopped by. I couldn’t exactly avoid my parents at home, but I did don a procedural mask at times, attempting to block out their unhealthy vapors.

All my efforts were, alas, to no avail. To be honest, I think I was starting to get this cold before my last chemo treatment – my nose was running a bit, but the big give-away was the start of a cough. On the other hand, my fear of getting sick was running so high that I wasn’t entirely sure which sensations to trust. Okay, plus I was playing the “if-I-don’t-admit-it-it’s-not-so” game. I probably should have ‘fessed up before treatment, but I wanted the treatment to be on schedule. Besides, my pre-chemo blood work was okay, and my pre-chemo steroids suppressed the symptoms. So I had my fourth chemo on schedule.

Of course, after I got off my post-chemo steroids, my cold symptoms reemerged. So I finally admitted to myself that I had a cold and called the oncologist's office. My nurse sounded unhappy with me, like it was my fault for getting this cold. She’s the one who put the idea in my head in the first place! Her advice? Take my temperature every day between 3 and 4 PM and call if I’m running a fever or if my symptoms get worse. That and “force fluids.”

So I’ve been sucking down water as fast as I can and thinking about the mind/body connection. On one hand, awareness of my body and of something just not being right helped me get my cancer diagnosed while it was in Stage 1. On the other, hyper-awareness may have stressed me out and predisposed me to this cold. So what’s a poor chemo patient to do? I guess the answer is to focus on what is in each moment, not on what I’m afraid will be in the next. In other words, the usual struggle of my life:  the effort to experience the present moment and act on its reality, rather than react to my fears.

Skating on Thin Ice

I know this is a little after the fact, but I can’t believe that the US Figure Skating’s International Committee choose Michelle Kwan for the Olympic Team, bumping off Emily Hughes. Well, let me restate that: yes I can believe they choose her, but I don’t think that they should have.

All throughout the coverage of the Nationals, commentator Dick Button went on and on about how the committee “had” to pick Kwan, because of what she’s meant to the sport. And while I agree that Kwan has been at the pinnacle of US Ladies Figure Skating for quite a long time, she is just not there right now. We’ve scant evidence that she will be able to perform in a few weeks in Turin, the approval of the “monitoring panel” notwithstanding. I’d like to believe that this panel will be fair, but the trend in US Figure Skating over the last several years is to anoint Kwan the champion before she even skates out onto the ice. The last time we’ve seen Kwan skate was at 2005 World Championships, where she came in fourth. Since then, she’s had hip and groin injuries that have kept her from doing triple jumps. In fact, this recent groin injury has kept her from jumping at all until just after the Nationals.

Granted, Emily Hughes might not be able to get the job done, either. She is young and inexperienced, essentially a rookie on the senior level. And her long program was not stellar, including missteps and mistakes. But, Hughes competed this year, where Kwan did not. We know what Hughes has done in the past twelve months. We don’t know what Kwan has done in the past twelve months. And, quite frankly (and as much as it pains me to say it, since I really do admire Kwan), Kwan has choked at the Olympics twice before. Yes, of course she is a two-time medallist, and that is a great accomplishment. But when all the hype leading up to those previous Games was “it’s time for Michelle to receive her Olympic accolades,” well, it is hard to see her silver and bronze medals as anything but a let-down.

Michelle Kwan finished fourth at last year’s Worlds, behind the two women regarded as her biggest rivals in Turin: Irina Slutskaya and Sasha Cohen. Over this past year, we have seen both Slutskaya and Cohen skate well. We’ve seen Hughes surpass some observers’ expectations. However, we’ve seen Kwan skate in one event – the Marshall's US Figure Skating Challenge, an exhibition judged by fans, not judges, where Kwan managed only double jumps.

Is this really the skater we want to put on our Olympic Team?

Bravery

All through my experience with cancer, and especially with chemo, so many of my friends and family have told me how brave I am. Brave? I certainly don't feel very brave. What's so brave about doing what the doctor tells you to do?

Pre-surgery:
Doctor: We think you have ovarian cancer. Here is the surgery we do for that.
Me: Okay.
Doctor: And have you had any ibuprofen in the past few days? I don't want to wait ten days.
Me: Um, maybe once. Okay.

Post-surgery, about six weeks:
Doctor: Your cancer is stage 1-C. That means it was confined to the ovaries. Here is the standard chemotherapy protocol. We'll start in a week or two.
Me: Okay.

See? No real daring do here. Just following directions. Not blindly, mind you -- I made sure I had a good doctor.

I suppose what my friends and family is really referring to is my attitude. I'm not balled up in a corner crying my eyes out. Well, not most of the time, and not where anyone else can see. I generally like to keep those reactions to myself -- perhaps not healthiest response, but typical of me. I have to admit that over the past few weeks, my fears have been breaking through more and more. I've had trouble sleeping, and my mind keeps getting caught up in thoughts of the worst -- even though all my blood work indicates that I'm doing well. I think some of it is delayed reaction -- I worked hard to compartmentalize my fears early in my recovery, so that I could concentrate on building strength and getting better. Undoubtedly, some of those fears built up and have broken through now. I think I am also nervous about how well my treatment is going. I mean, yeah, there are plenty of unpleasant parts, but overall, the treatments themselves and my body's response have been going really well. I guess I'm afraid of the other shoe dropping. I keep reminding myself that these kinds of fears are natural, but it doesn't always help.

The fact that my third treatment was especially hard on me did not help in the "attitude" factor. It's hard to keep your chin up when you feel like crap. Once I finally started to get over my third treatment, I've been able to get my fears a bit more under control -- or at least less in control of me. I know my fears will never completely go away: that's one of the things I really hate about having cancer. I guess it is a good lesson in learning to live with uncertainty. Or a good way to let uncertainty drive you around the bend. Here's hoping I can keep viewing it as the former and avoid the latter.

Nevertheless, I still don't see how any of this makes me particularly brave. I'm just trying to get through this experience the best I can.

Cancer

For anyone who happens upon this blog who doesn't actually know me, a big portion of my life right now is devoted to my treatment for ovarian cancer. I had surgery on October 5, 2005 (five days before my 40th birthday), to remove my ovaries (and all my other reproductive parts, as well as my appendix). Miraculously, my cancer was discovered in Stage 1-C, which is unusual, since ovarian cancer has very subtle symptoms and in not usually found until Stage 3 or 4. So while it sucks to have cancer, I still feel blessed that it was caught in such an early stage. I'm currently undergoing chemotherapy.

This experience with cancer has been surreal. Since early October, my life has been immersed in the strange, bizarre world of cancer treatment. It really began before October, when I began getting passed from my primary care doctor, to an ob/gyn, to a gynecologic oncologist, and also undergoing ultrasounds (like the bladder buster pelvic one, and the transvaginal, which is easier, but more embarrassing) and CT scans and blood tests. But those pre-surgery days were just a taste of what was to come. And even though I became increasingly convinced that I did indeed have cancer (I have a family history of the disease), I could still hold out a bit of hope that my gut feeling was wrong.

But on October 5th, my life changed. It was now certain: I had ovarian cancer. I can't say I was shocked, but I certainly was distraught. I wasn't even quite 40. How could this happen? One of my surgeons told me after my surgery that he believed the cancer was at an early stage, and that "we did a very good thing today." And the final pathology report bore out his optimism, with the cancer confined to my ovaries, and no cancer anywhere else. And at least by the time I officially knew it was cancer, the stuff was already out of me.

Nevertheless, my life has changed. First, of course, was the recovery from surgery. I was in the hospital for four days, which felt much longer than that. (At some point, I may write about my hospital experiences.) Then home to recover. With such extensive surgery, I was closed internally in layers. On the outside, I had an eight-inch incision, closed with surgical staples. Who new they looked and functioned just like office staples? I little bigger, and no, the ends don't fold under, but they are metal staples. They kind of freaked me out, and I could hardly wait to have them removed.

Everything was a struggle - getting out of bed in the morning, getting into bed at night, getting up out of my recliner, going to the bathroom, washing up, changing clothes. I haven't napped so much since I was a baby. And while I've heard it said that our abdominal muscles are key to much of our movement, I never really realized how true it is until after my surgery.

Recovery from surgery seemed to take forever, although I did make steady progress. Sometimes my fears about cancer broke through, but during the post-surgical phase of my recovery, I did a pretty good job of what my minister called "compartmentalizing." That is, dealing with the situation at hand and saving the rest for later. And so I got more familiar with daytime television than I ever wanted to (thank goodness for cable), began to walk around the house as much as I could, and rested whenever my body said I had to. So slowly, but surely, my recovery from the surgery progressed as it should.

My First Post

This is my initial post to my new blog. I don't really have anything to say right now, but I'll be back later!